Can science resolve the nature/nurture debate? / Margaret Lock & Gisli Palsson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lock, Margaret, author.

Gísli Pálsson, 1949- author.

Series:

New human frontiers series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nature and nurture.

Human genetics.

Genetics.

Human biology.

Physical Description:

viii, 177 pages ; 19 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK : Polity Press, 2016.

Summary:

Following centuries of debate about "nature and nurture," the discovery of DNA established the idea that nature (genes) determines who we are, relegating nurture (environment) to icing on the cake. Since the 1950s, the new science of epigenetics has demonstrated how environments, external and internal to individual bodies, influence gene expression at the molecular level, with significant implications for health and wellbeing. To the amazement of scientists, mapping the human genome indirectly supported these insights. Anthropologist Margaret Lock and Gisli Palsson outline vituperative arguments from classical times about the relationship between nature and nurture, furthered today by epigenetic findings and the demonstration of a "reactive genome." The nature/nurture debate, they show, can never be put to rest, because these concepts are in constant flux in response to the new insights science continually offers. Book jacket.

Contents:

Preamble : beyond the molecular vision of life

Moveable concepts : nature and nurture

Promotion and demotion of the gene

Reinstating nurture : from opposition to commingling

Accruing biosocial momentum

Biopolitics for the future.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Lock, Margaret. Can science resolve the nature-nurture debate?

ISBN:

9780745689968

0745689965

9780745689975

0745689973

OCLC:

932116026